Someone Else's Shoes
by tinhead
Summary: The world needed its heros, he realised. Albus Dumbledore was just one of the unlucky few." (oneshot) (author formerly eruve tinwen)


**Someone Else's Shoes**

Harry stood, breathing heavily, his hands shaking. "Don't ever mention him again!" he screamed, his wand hovering over Draco Malfoy, who was whimpering on the ground. "Do you hear me?"

Malfoy nodded frantically.

Ron approached Harry warily. "Listen, mate..."

"SHUT UP!" Harry screamed. The crowd around Harry shuffled backwards even further, and Ron bowed his head and moved back with them.

Harry glared at the frightened students. "WHAT ARE YOU ALL STARING AT?!" he roared. "GET!"

All but Ron and Hermione fled, then McGonagall appeared. She took one look at Malfoy sniffling on the ground, boils covering every inch of his body, and narrowed her eyes.

She turned to Ron and Hermione. "You two, take Mister Malfoy to the Hospital Wing."

Harry snorted as they hurried forward and picked him up gently. _Traitors_.

"50 points off Gryffindor, Potter."

He sneered darkly. "So?" She thought _that _would make him 'sorry for his actions'?

Her lips tightened. "And two weeks worth of detention!"

"Try and make me."

"You'll be expelled!" she screeched.

He smirked. "No I wont. You know I wont. You need me to take down Voldemort, so you cant expel me. Isn't it ironic!"

She gritted her teeth. "_You _are going to the Headmaster."

"No, I'm not."

She snarled.

_She has a surprisingly strong grip, for an old fart. _Harry thought, as he was dragged down the corridors by the Deputy Headmistress.

"Canary Creams." She bit out. The gargoyle moved aside and she shoved him onto the moving staircase.

"You," she said, "will go into that office, and wait for Professor Dumbledore. I will be waiting down here, and you wont get past me without him!"

He sighed in relief as the staircase carried him out of sight of her wrinkly face.

Bloody woman. Malfoy deserved that! She didn't even _ask_ his side of the story. That Slytherin scum been jeering about Sirius. He called him _worthless_, a coward and a failure

Malfoy _did_ deserve it.

And no one understood that. No one understood just how much it hurt.

He reached out to the knob, and opened the door.

And sighed in relief. Dumbledore wasn't in here yet. Thank_ merlin_. He knew it was inevitable, because McGonagall was acting watch dog, but he really didn't want to listen to the old man's rambling anymore, _especially _after last year...

He lowered himself into an armchair and waited for the Headmaster.

Half an hour passed, and Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen. He pondered on the idea of telling the old wench Dumbledore wasn't coming – not an appealing idea, but the only one.

He rose from his seat and turned to the door, but glimmer of silver caught his eye.

Following the glimmer, he smiled. Dumbledore's _pensive!_ The mad fool had left it out again.

He strode towards it purposefully, a thought forming in his head. He wondered what troubles the old man had to be using his pensive – maybe his _weapon _wasn't being so cooperative.

He plunged his hand into the silver liquid.

Immediately he felt the sensation of being sucked in through a whirl of colour. Pictures slid by so fast they looked like a blur, and Harry was getting dizzy.

Then, when he was about to pull out, they stopped suddenly, and Harry was thrown into a series of events. Events and thoughts of Albus Dumbledore that he never would have expected to have occurred.

He saw Dumbledore as he crawled across the room, shaking from the after-effects of torture, screaming for his papa, who was taken down by a killing curse, so quickly, so suddenly.

Dumbledore, neglected and uncared for by his step-mother, starved for days, the family servant.

Dumbledore, crying in his tiny room and resigning himself to the fact that he was hopeless.

He saw Albus Dumbledore shyly making friends after he was sorted into Gryffindor, but who would be weighed down for years to come with the thought that he was almost chosen for the serpent house.

He saw him make his own unintentional rivals, because of his last name.

He saw him advance on a Slytherin, who dared to insult the memory of his father, and curse him with no mercy.

The memories flashed past faster. Getting teased by his step-brother on the holidays. Being mistreated by his stepmother. Longing for his friends. Losing his temper. Taking exams. Straining against fear and stress. Living in a world of hate. Battling against the burning desire to use his strength to cause pain and death, and winning. And coming face to face with his father's killer, Grindelwald, and repaying the favour. His hands shaking afterwards.

The whirl of images returned, faster and faster, until they were just one void of grey.

It stopped again, on a time not so long ago...

Harry saw himself slam the office door after that horrible night.

He watched as Dumbledore, cool, infallible Dumbledore, got up from his desk, walked calmly to his quarters and shut the door.

Then he did something Harry would never have expected. Something which would change his perspective of the man forever.

Dumbledore collapsed to his knees, and burst into tears.

"Help me."

Harry ripped himself away from the image of his headmaster sobbing uncontrollably into his hands, and landed, panting, on the office floor.

The world needed its heros, he realised, as the Headmaster waltzed confidently into the room, wearing a calm smile.

Albus Dumbledore was just one of the unlucky few.

* * *

A/N: Not one of my best, but oh well. 

This was my anti-slandering of Dumbledore! :P

HAPPY 2005 everyone!!


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